#5 Starter in the Rotation - Mills or Richmond?

[chargerxthirty]

Well Ricky's been givin the tap as our #4.

The fifth spot comes down to Mills or Richmond.

The final spot has a few curious options.....

If we go with Mills we have a predominantly lefty staff.... 3 to 2. This is a very unique situation as its rather rare to have more left handed starters than right handed. It begs the question, which way is the better route to go.

Hitters are predominantly right handed which gives a righty the nod, but on the other hand... a lot of the big boppers in the AL are left handed. Ortiz, Morneau, Hamilton, Teixera (switch hitter), Thome.... etc.

Richmond has the Canadian element too.... hard to decide!!

[Modern_epic]

If Richmond being Canadian plays into the decision, then someone needs to be fired.

Now, on the other hand, I'm not saying this should be a pure baseball decision. If they are still relatively equal after their last starts, picking Richmond as to not start Mills' service clock this season is a smart move.



Of course, having just checked tonight's game, hopefully Richmond puts up a start to separate them in his last go, or we're potentially in a lot of trouble every 5th day. Mills' line tonight:
5.1 IP, 10 H, 7 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 1 SO, 1 HR.
There is no 'well, at least...' to take out of that line.

[PowerHouse]

Maybe they should share the 5th spot, so that they'll pitch every 10 days.

the other can a long relief man if during 5 days "off".

[Modern_epic]

Maybe they should share the 5th spot, so that they'll pitch every 10 days.

the other can a long relief man if during 5 days "off".

That wouldn't work like you think it does. Any day they pitch outside of days 4-6 is either going to be at less than full strength (1-3), or will hurt their next start (7-9). So you could only get 3 days of potential relief out of them, and one of them is on the other guy's start day. You get a 5 day cycle of: 1) starter and reliever, 2) reliever, 3) off, 4) off, 5) reliever.

And even in the reliever's usable period, you really can only ask them to pitch two of those days, and 5 innings in total would probably be pushing it if you don't pitch them mostly on the the other guys start, so there is only one long relief day in there. It's just not very useful. Presuming you are starting both because they are equal pitchers, it's a waste of a relief spot.

If you were talking about Cecil and Mills, and so trying to keep both of their innings down, then I can see why you might consider the idea.

[zilby]

Ricky Romero.

[Schad]

If you were talking about Cecil and Mills, and so trying to keep both of their innings down, then I can see why you might consider the idea.

It would keep their innings down, but with the side-effect of preventing them from stretching out to be bona fide starters.